


Strawberry Defence: Protect The Love

by Metal_Gear_Steve



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: F/F, Multiverse, Prestigious All Girls High School, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 09:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11124453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_Gear_Steve/pseuds/Metal_Gear_Steve
Summary: When a new transfer student shows up at the prestigious Moputaun District Academy of Art and Culture, she unknowingly captures the heart of a purple-haired maiden. Quickly becoming friends, the feelings between them soon start to change. However, dark storm clouds start to roll in, and their fortune soon changes. Will their relationship evolve? Do their friends have any inkling as to their feelings towards each other - heck, do they even realise? And who on earth is the absurdly powerful but ultimately benevolent student council president who keeps showing up? Find out now - in Strawberry Defence: Protect The Love!Warning: Extremely cheesy, obnoxiously cliched, and even disgustingly melodramatic and angsty in places.





	Strawberry Defence: Protect The Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a long opening note - feel free to skip it and continue onto the story. There's also gonna be a long end note. Sorry for all of the clutter.
> 
> \---
> 
> This story came about due to an idea I had kicking around for a year or two. We know that El Goonish Shive has an established multiverse, and that the series' cast aren't always consistent across these universes - if nothing else, their multiversial counterparts can be of different genders. So I thought "Hey, how many gooey cliche-fests can I write revolving around Tedd and Elliot's relationship, platonic or otherwise? I'll set them all in different universes, and sometimes they'll get together! It'll be great!"
> 
> That idea stuck around for at least a year, and I never got to it. Until like February this year.
> 
> Something just overtook me, and I began to see Elliot/Tedd as a potential thing again. I felt like writing about their bond as friends, or even soulmates, across a variety of settings. I don't know why it took until February 2017 for me to be like "okay, hold on a minute, should I follow through on this idea?", but it did. So I decided to go ahead with the multiverse story idea - to this day, I have a potential four stories to do up and release. 
> 
> But this was the first one, and in my opinion the most coherent, gooey, mushy and - most importantly - true to the original parodied concept story that I could write. It rings true to the genre, whereas the other completed stories feel a bit incomplete and hollow regarding their subjects. And with the current sort of apathy I have towards the rest of the series, I didn't want this story to go to waste because I couldn't get into the writing spirit.
> 
> So I'm posting this as possibly the only trace of this aborted idea that I had. I had a blast making it - it is so goddamn cheesy, I went super-overboard with the similes and purple prose because I thought it was hilarious and actually workable as a story. I ripped off as many anime tropes as I could, mostly pertaining to the yuri genre - prestigious all girls school, absurdly powerful student council president, snobby upper-class bullies etc. - but also added some general romantic cliches to it as well. The chief influences for this fanfiction are Sasameki Koto, Kimi Ni Todoke and the one episode of Strawberry Panic I saw as a teenager. I wrote it as a parody of overly flowery romantic fanfiction, but in the most respectful definition of "parody" as I could - this is also a genuinely heartfelt attempt to write a yuri story.
> 
> It does deal with some themes that you might find upsetting. Bullying is one of them, and there's also a moment that may make a LGBTQIA+ reader particularly uncomfortable, especially if it has happened to them personally. I don't intend to make anyone feel sad or uncomfortable, but I want to throw the possibility out in case you don't want to deal with that.
> 
> I'm so sorry for the super long opening note. I sincerely hope you enjoy my story, I had a great time writing it.

In the western region of a Japanese province, there was an area known as Mōputaun. Much like any city, Mōputaun had its train-lines, its bustling storefronts, its tacky hotels – by all means and purposes, Mōputaun was the archetypical Japanese city, unremarkable in every way. However, the area stood out in one particular way – the city was well-known for its prestigious all-female high school.

Foreign politicians and dignitaries sent their female children to Mōputaun when they came of age, to broaden their horizons and to experience the dignity and posture that was expected of an upper-class woman in Japanese society. And it's through this lens that we focus on one Miss Ellen Dunkel - a young woman of German heritage, but American born and raised, who was accepted to the prestigious high school on account of her hardworking, globe-trotting parents.

\-----

As soon as the toll-gates opened at West Mōputaun Station, Ellen broke into a sprint – startling a cyclist and causing him to fall off his bike, and running right into the path of a car which thankfully slammed on the breaks in time to avoid hitting her. Turning left, Ellen began running full-pelt up a sharp incline towards her new school.

_Crap! I’m gonna be late!!_

Feeling her plaid, calf-high skirt flutter around her legs, Ellen reached up to her mouth and caught the piece of toast that was dangling from it. Rounding a corner, she stuffed as much of the toast as she could into her mouth, working desperately to chew the sticky, stale concoction and finish eating by the time she came across any other students. Nearing the top of the incline, she forced the toast down – sprinting into the school grounds just as the morning bell prepared to ring.

Her arrival prompted waves of gasps and yells. Her toned arms and legs, more pronounced than the slender, ladylike frames of most of the school’s attendees due to years of martial arts and general athletics training, was jarringly out of place – and Ellen’s panting, jam-covered face was a ridiculous sight to behold.

Some students huffed, turned up their nose at the surprise arrival and began to daintily walk towards the school’s orientation ceremony. Others went up like a gaggle of geese and began telling Ellen how cool she was, or how surprising her entrance was. Most took in the sight, shrugged, and got ready for the day of school ahead.

But there was one girl who was stunned, flabbergasted and utterly surprised at the sort of person that had come bolting through her school’s gate. Her gaze was transfixed on this new arrival with the intense focus of a chessmaster watching a masterful game being played before him. For her, time seemed to slow down – it was as if the early morning sunlight drowned out the world around her, and waves of fallen sakura blossoms danced along gusts of wind like waves rolling in the ocean.

It took a solid twenty seconds for her fixation to be broken by one of her friends.

“Tess-kun! TESS-KUN!!”

Tess recoiled as her friend snapped her back to reality, falling over clumsily and dropping her round glasses. Scurrying in embarrassment, she picked her glasses up off the ground and shuffled furiously towards the orientation ceremony, hiding her beet-red face as best she could behind locks of violet hair.

Watching the whole ordeal, Sarah sighed.

“So it’s gonna be another one of those years.”

\-----

After the ceremony had concluded, the school’s students gathered in the dining hall to await a speech by the Student Council President. Upon hearing this, Ellen’s stomach rumbled painfully – had she known the school was preparing breakfast, she wouldn’t have rushed down that piece of toast.

As she entered the hall, she noticed that most of the seats were already occupied. Looking all over the hall, she finally spotted a place to sit – next to a purple haired girl. Making her way through the crowd as daintily as possible, as to avoid the same sort of attention that had found her earlier that morning, she slipped up to the empty seat and quickly sat down.

Surprised at the sudden movement to the side of her, Tess looked over – and upon seeing who it was, seemed to turn to stone. Glancing past her stiff friend, Sarah noticed Ellen as well, chuckling to herself as Tess sat perfectly still in mortified silence. Ellen didn’t seem to notice – she just smoothed out her skirt, clasped her hands together and looked straight ahead.

After the student body had been seated, the Student Council President entered the room. The reaction to her entrance was similar to how everyone had reacted to Ellen that morning, but the tone was much more hushed and reverent – as if the student body were watching a beautiful, intricate ballet recital.

With a rich, opulent robe lightly dusting the area around her feet, the Student Council President took the stage. With no notes or queue cards, nor a podium to dictate from, she began to speak:

“Distinguished young women of the Mōputaun District Academy of Art and Culture, I welcome you to a new school year!”

A rousing cheer sounded from the crowd, but it fell silent just as fast as it appeared when the President lifted her hands in silence.

“We have been blessed with a new year of opportunity and education,” she continued, “as well as with another solemn responsibility to ourselves and to our school.” The hall was unnaturally quiet, the President’s shoes softly clacking against the hard wood of the hall’s lavish, eye-drawing stage, before she whipped her hand out in a dramatic fashion – earning a flurry of gasps, swoons and sighs of adoration.

“To students new and old, remember this – we act in the name of our school, and our actions define the whole of our school! Diligence, hard work, concentration – all will be expected, nay – DEMANDED of you, to prove your place among the global elite!”

The hall glowed with ephemeral anticipation, the whole of the student body caught on the President’s every word, as she turned her back to the crowd.

“We must all do our part, and I pray that I can lead by example. I am honoured to lead such a fine, upstanding student body as yourselves, and I will provide what little I have to offer to better the lives of us all.”

Bowing low, her speech was met with rapturous applause as the student body leapt to their feet in joy. Young women of all years wept on the ground, touched so sincerely by the Student Council President’s words, and a small group of students had grouped around her feet in a desperate effort to garner her attention. Taken aback by the almost cult-like enthusiasm, Ellen leaned back – and noticed that the student sitting next to her was completely silent.

“{Hey – crazy speech, huh?}”

Tess raised her head and looked over at Ellen – her Japanese wasn’t fluent, but she seemed friendly enough and she wasn’t currently in the throes of passion-fuelled hysteria.

“Yes, it was a bit much.” Tess looked to the side shyly, her eyes totally hidden behind the almost reflective nature of her glasses. “The Student Council President is adored, and every year she delivers a similarly grand speech. To some, it can be overwhelming at times.”

A puzzled look crossed Ellen’s face – she knew a fair bit of Japanese, but it took her a few seconds to properly parse what Tess had said.

“{You mean this sort of thing happens every year?}”

Tess nodded. A slightly dumbfounded look appeared on Ellen’s face as she surveyed the behaviour of the students around her, thinking about the frequency of such fanaticism.

“Hey, are you new here or something?”

An unfamiliar voice pricked at Ellen’s ears, and she turned back towards Tess to find a gently round-faced blonde looking in her direction.

“{Uhh, yeah!}” Ellen stammered out, her mind racing to put the right syllables together to properly greet the two. “{I’m Ellen Dunkel, my parents moved here recently from America.}”

“I’m Sarah,” the blonde girl replied – gesturing towards her purple-haired friend before introducing her as “my friend, Tess-kun.”

Looking away, Tess’ glasses fell away from her eyes just enough for Ellen to get a good glimpse of them – her eyes were as vibrantly purple as her hair, but with the depth and detail of the ocean. A spark flowed through both Ellen and Tess as they made the briefest moment of eye contact, like a lightning bolt shooting through the eye of a needle, giving them both an unprecedented feeling of what almost felt like destiny.

But with a clap of the Student Council President’s hands, a flurry of servants swarmed into the room and broke their concentration. The two returned to their own bubbles as an extravagant breakfast was delivered, one of them seriously humbled and nervously curious about making a new friend in an unfamiliar environment, and the other feeling as if she had taken a bold leap into the unknown herself.

\-----

Ellen joined Tess’ small friend circle, meeting characters such as Grace, an energetic girl who Sarah referred to as being “genki” most of the time, Catalina, a hot-blooded counterpart who seemed to play almost directly off of Grace, and Susan, another American student whose mother had forced her to attend the school against her own wishes. Lunchtimes were lively and enjoyable, and Ellen settled right in – her Japanese improved drastically, and she was soon an integral part of the friend group. Tess had surprised Ellen – she seemed so timid and shy on the day Ellen met her, but she had a penchant for jokes and assorted wackiness and she was a tech genius. It was Tess who Ellen gravitated towards the most, and they were soon best friends.

One lunchtime, about a month after Ellen had transferred, Tess didn’t show up on time. Sarah had gone to look for her, and Ellen decided that she would have a quick look herself – eventually finding herself crouched outside a bathroom as some girls spoke tersely within.

“What should we do with the science freak?”

“I dunno – why don’t we just take what she’s holding?

“W-wait, no—“

Suddenly there was a crash of books hitting the floor and the sound of fluttering paper, followed by the hollow, snobby laughter of a group of upper-class girls.

“Quick, grab her notebook!”

“No, please—“

“What, are you still struggling? Let it go!”

After a minor struggle, Ellen heard the dull sound of a body feebly hitting the ground. She clenched her teeth - There was no mistaking it, Tess was being bullied by a group of older students.

Ready to pounce, a sharp declaration from one of the girls froze her in her tracks.

“What’s this? Love hearts, drawings…? Oh, Tess, really?!”

Their shrill, mirthless laughter sounded out once again, filling Ellen with rage. Slowly, methodically and with the full intention of breaking the whole group’s faces, Ellen silently crept into the bathroom and began to stride towards the girl with the book.

“Well, would you look at that? Another fangirl for the Student Council President, it would seem!”

Ellen bored her eyes into the back of the bully’s neck. She could make out individual hairs and pores – this girl was going to get obliterated when Ellen got her hands on her. Slowly, with anticipated trepidation, Ellen walked ever closer to her mark.

Unaware of Ellen’s presence, the bully continued to run her mouth.

“You’ve filled this entire notebook up! We all get by with the occasional glimpse, but you felt the need to write it all down for later! How pathetic!”

Clenching her fists, Ellen bore another round of cackling from the group. She was halfway between the entrance and the group of girls, and she could see Tess lying on the ground, her glasses knocked askew. Her eye caught Ellen’s, and a look of mortification exploded onto her face.

The lead bully seemed to notice this, and took the opportunity to exploit it.

“Well, that’s enough of that. Let’s get to the end of this book and see what all the fuss is about!”

With a unanimous agreement among the bullies, the figurehead flipped through pages nonchalantly – mockingly narrating a mean-spirited story as she went along, as the look of horror on Tess’ face grew grimmer and grimmer.

“Oh, woe is me! My poor widdle heart is bursting with emotion, and without my pwecious booky-wook, I couldn’t even get through the day!”

Coming across the final used page, the leader put her finger up into the air, preparing to point at the inevitable conclusion to Tess’ notebook with a sick sense of demented glee.

“And it was then, my dear diary, that I knew my true love was…”

Ellen was inches away from her, to the point that standing any closer would tip her off. Fully prepared to bust her head open like a rotten melon, she wound up a punch.

The bully’s voice dropped – having expected the usual item of affection among the student body, the result had taken her aback.

“…Ellen Dunkel?”

Ellen stopped in her tracks. Glancing over at Tess, her head was turned to the side, her face concealed by a curtain of violet hair – large, bulbous teardrops dripping down onto the floor.

The bully dropped Tess’ notebook.

“You’re interested in that mannish exchange student? No interest for the Student Body President, but you… Wait, you’re actually… Really?!”

The situation dawned on the bully and her pack of friends, and an incredibly ominous cackle sounded from their throats. Tess lifted her arm feebly to protect herself, letting out a heavy sob as her affections were laid bare.

“So you actually like girls, then.” The ringleader stepped up and prepared to attack. “In a bastion of purity and goodness, that wicked sin will have to be punished!!”

Aiming a piercing slap at Tess, the bully suddenly felt a strong force grip her arm.

“The only sin that’s getting punished today is your disgusting behavior!!!”

With a mighty roar, Ellen twisted the girl’s arm and brought her to her knees.

“Do you like causing pain?!” Ellen leant down and roared in her face. The bully had started to cry, expensive mascara running like black paint down her face.

As she tried to answer, Ellen cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter. You know what you did, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that go unpunished!”

With a heave, Ellen put her free hand under the girl’s shoulder and threw her across the room by her arm. The girl’s body hit the wall with a sickening thud, and she dropped to the ground in a heap. The other girls stepped back, shocked at the strength and brutality that they had just witnessed.

“…WELL?!” Ellen shouted, making the remaining girls jump. “Would anyone ELSE like to step up and take responsibility for this!?”

It was a matter of seconds before the remaining bullies dashed for the door, screaming in terror. They were soon followed by their ringleader, clutching her arm and limping to the exit.

Picking up Tess’ notebook and closing it firmly, Ellen turned around and crouched down to tend to her friend.

“Hey, Tess… are you alright?”

Gently laying a hand on her shoulder, Ellen felt a wave of despair as Tess feebly shrugged it off and balled herself up.

“No… Please, no… Ellen…”

The girl’s words were broken up by heavy sobs, each one wracking her body with a tremendous shudder. Stepping away to give her some space, Ellen placed the notebook close to her.

The two remained in silence for a while, the empty atmosphere occasionally interrupted by Tess’ sobs. As they slowed in frequency, and her breathing grew more level, Ellen spoke.

“...I’m not going to comment on the book. Those were emotions you didn’t want me to see, and I don’t feel comfortable addressing them without your approval.”

She moved closer to Tess. Tess tensed up, making herself as small as possible.

“B-but I am going to tell you something.” Ellen’s voice cracked as the atmosphere broke her tough attitude. “I don’t think anything’s wrong. I think you might be one of my best friends, I think I appreciate your companionship.”

Ellen sat down next to Tess and faced her.

“You’re a good person to me, Tess. I know this sort of thing gets harsh reactions, I-I really do… I know how awful people can treat you for things like this. But I’m not shaken, or offended, or anything bad – you’re a dear person in my life, and if you think I’m going to turn away or treat you poorly for how you feel, I’m not.”

Tess let out another sob, but her tense frame noticeably relaxed. Slowly, cautiously trying not to overstep her boundaries, Ellen reached over and left her hand rest on Tess’ shoulder – and while she jolted from the contact, she didn’t pull away.

Gently sinking her fingers into Tess’ shoulder, Ellen pulled her in softly for a hug. Slowly, Tess sank into Ellen’s frame and hugged so tightly around her waist it felt like she could crack a rib if she wasn’t careful. Faced with the revelation of her friend’s crush, and seeing her in such a distraught state, the tough outer wall Ellen had put up came crashing down.

“I’m just so sorry that I didn’t do more… I never meant for you to get hurt like that, I could have done more... I could have walked faster, but… oh god, I’m so sorry!!”

Embracing her, Ellen started to cry as well. It wasn’t long before the pair were sobbing wrecks.

\-----

It was later that week that Ellen got called in to address the incident. Tess sat outside the door as the school’s principal yelled at her, telling her that her family would be paying for the damages to the bathroom as well as the hospital bills of the girl she’d assaulted, and generally drag as much of the incident out of her before dismissing her series of events outright.

It seemed as though Ellen was on the verge of expulsion – until the Student Council President entered the room. Knocking gently on the door, she let herself in.

It took ten minutes for her to walk back out again, the principal totally cowed and Ellen following right after.

“S-Student Council President!” Tess bowed. The President smiled, and motioned for Ellen to join her friend.

“Please, such formality is not needed. I heard about what happened from one of your friends – Sarah?”

“Huh? Sarah?” Ellen looked between the Student Council President and Tess. “I was the only person in our friend group in there.”

The President smiled.

“She told me that she caught the tail end of what happened – she saw a group of students leave the restrooms in a state of distress, and heard you address the situation.”

Both Ellen and Tess looked down.

“…It was an awful experience, Ms. Roche. Had Ellen not been so kind after the ordeal, I feel like I wouldn’t have recovered as easily.”

“Yes.” The President looked at them both with a knowing smile. “I’m aware of the events. The only thing I’m not sure of is why a group of upstanding young women from this school would feel the need to be this cruel.”

“Humph! That makes two of us!” Ellen puffed out her chest, to the amusement of the Student Council President.

“Regardless, I’ve cleared up this mess. You are both free to go, with my blessing.”

Ellen’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

“W-wait, really? What!?”

The President lightly flicked her hair out of her eyes.

“Ms. Dunkel, my family owns this school. As Student Council President, I have a responsibility to uphold its reputation, and to make it the sort of place that’s worth representing. You did a great deal of harm to another student and you damaged a restroom – however, it was done with the intent of protecting a fellow student from a cruel, unjust event. That spirit, in essence, is what I envision in this school’s students – compassion and loyalty are what makes us human, what makes us exceptional.”

Placing a hand on her shoulder, the Student Council President looked into Ellen’s eyes.

“Your loyalty to your friend, and exceptional compassion when it came to comforting her, are incredibly admirable. You have earned my respect, Ms. Dunkel, and it would be the least of my worries to let you off the hook.”

Ellen looked across at Tess. Her vivid, violet eyes had welled up with tears, and a shaky smile was bordering on an appreciative grin. The entire situation had been hell, but seeing Tess smile like that triggered a swelling sense of happiness in Ellen – if she didn’t know any better, she would have called it “joy”.

The Student Council President took her leave, leaving Ellen and Tess to get to class. Walking out into the hall after her, the girls took a quick chance to look at each other - before looking away awkwardly.

“…So, I uhh…” Ellen scratched the back of her head as she tried to sort out her words. “I… I know I said I wouldn’t mention your feelings unless you explicitly wanted to tell me.”

Tess turned beet-red and tried to overtake her. “E-Ellen, it’s oka—“

“I think I like you too, Tess.”

The corridor felt unnaturally silent as Ellen blurted out her answer. With Tess frozen in place, Ellen continued.

“I… I like girls too, Tess. I like you.”

The pair stood face to face for a good few seconds. Everyone was in class – there wasn’t a soul in sight to witness Ellen’s confession, and Tess drew from that to muster up her own response.

“Y’know, I… felt something on the day we met. This jolt, this gut feeling. Something like ‘destiny’. I guess it turned out to be a red string tying around my finger, huh?”

Tess let out a dry laugh at her corny observation.

“I feel like I know you so well after a month, and I thought maybe – just maybe – that you might have felt the same. And now it’s happening, and I don’t know how to feel. My heart’s beating out of my chest, I’m still reeling over being outed… I feel shell-shocked almost, like none of this is real.”

“…Yeah.” Ellen responded in a dry, crackly voice. “I, uhh… I felt the same way, but romance isn’t something that comes naturally to me. But it’s that jolt you described that makes me feel like maybe, I’ve found the same thing. I want to give it a shot.”

Tess stepped towards Ellen, and Ellen grabbed Tess’ arms gently to pull her forward.

“Ellen?”

“Yeah?”

“…Thanks. For sitting next to me that day, for being too slow to stop those girls, for being good to me when I needed it most – everything.”

Ellen cracked a dry smile.

“I needed a place to sit, and it’s not every day you meet a girl with purple hair. Let alone purple hair as perfect as yours.”

With her grin bursting out of control, Ellen leant in and offered a single, meaningful, chaste kiss on Tess’ cheek. As she pulled back, Tess put her hand behind Ellen’s head and pushed her back down for a slightly less chaste kiss – it only lasted a second, but the experience felt like galaxies colliding in Ellen’s mind, and left her light-headed as all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her head.

\-----

Sarah knew, of course. She had known since the first day of the semester, and Ellen’s way of handling Tess’ grief had won her over. Grace seemed a bit upset – she loved to get touchy-feely with everyone, and most of the friend group assumed that she had her own crush on Tess. Regardless, she was happy for Ellen and Tess, and gave the pairing her full blessing. When confronted with the news, Catalina blushed deeply and mumbled something illegible – something Susan called her out on, in that it was the quietest that she had ever seen her be. Overall, it went over well – Ellen and Tess weren’t exactly open about it, just in case, but they spent the weekends together and they loved to hold hands in the occasional empty hallway or two.

Funnily enough, on one such occasion, they ran into the Student Council President out of the blue. Small talk ensued, everything was pleasant, but the President let a secret loose as they were parting ways:

“You know, it’s always lovely to see couples take the time to see each other during the school day. Why, I might have to give it a try myself sometime.”

And with a wink and no more context than that, Ms. Rhoda Roche politely excused herself and continued on with her busy day – leaving Ellen and Tess to enjoy a few more seconds of each other’s company before class.

**Author's Note:**

> So, some creative notes.
> 
> Moputaun is the result of throwing "mope town" through Google Translate. It's lazy and dumb, but it is what it is.
> 
> Initially, the student council president was going to be Nanase. Considering her relation to Tedd in the EGS Prime universe, I thought it wouldn't fly to have her not know who Tess was in this universe and I wasn't sure how to write the familial connection in without breaking the mushy prose. I had also written past the principal's office scene, and I had gotten to the bit where Ellen and Tess tell the group about liking each other - and I thought it would be funny to allude to Catalina and Rhoda's relationship. It turned into a really cute detail that I really liked. The only downside is that Rhoda acts a bit OOC - definitely a valid point to criticise. Possibly more OOC than Nanase fulfilling the same role. Diane was also a possibility, and would have fit the absurdly powerful student council president role better, but it would have cut out the cute Catalina teasing moment with Susan. I was also worried about what that would mean for the current Susan/Diane sister story arc once that kicks off, so I stayed with Rhoda.
> 
> I was gonna use those pointy > brackets to signify Ellen's shaky grasp on the language. In EGS, using those brackets has signified characters speaking another language - Nanase speaking to her family in Japanese in particular. Given that the language of the setting was meant to be Japanese, I thought it'd be interesting to use them on Ellen to establish that her handle on the language was a bit foreign to those in the setting. But because the HTML entry form eats those brackets up, I had to settle for the { } brackets.
> 
> Why is Rhoda's last name Roche in this story? Because according to Shiveapedia, Rhoda doesn't have a last name. Ms. President sounded clunky, so I made up a last name that sounded kinda fancy-schmancy, like a super-wealthy ojou might have? The initial inspiration for it was Ferrero Rocher.
> 
> Because this is set in a universe separate from the main "EGS Prime universe", the Ellen in this story is this universe's Elliot. I'm not supplanting the EGS Prime universe's Ellen into another setting so she can mack on Female Tedd instead of Nanase, I made the pairing what it is as a part of the initial "Elliot/Tedd relationship, platonic or otherwise" concept of the multiverse series I had planned. I feel like I established this well enough in the opening notes, but I wanted to make my intentions crystal clear just in case.
> 
> In the absurdly long opening note, I mention a moment that might make LGBTQIA+ readers particularly uncomfortable. That was the scene with the bullies, where they out Tess by revealing her crush on Ellen without knowing that Ellen was right behind them. They also become particularly nasty when Tess' crush is on another girl that isn't the student council president, and go to hit her. I was worried that the depiction of a character being outed - in front of their crush, no less - would stir up some unpleasant memories for people who were themselves outed, in front of their crushes or otherwise. The idea that the girls idolize the student council president to an extreme point like an exaggerated Strawberry Panic came from another place, however.
> 
> I think that detail came from a personal dislike of Tumblr ship drama at the time, people fighting over SU ships - Peridot/Amethyst and Peridot/Lapis in particular. Hence the premise of the bullies going "you like a girl who isn't the student council president?! You're weird and we hate you!". I don't think most shipping drama - or real life relationship drama - stems from self-insert stuff to the degree of this story. The premise of someone getting mad because they don't share the same affections towards the same person is particularly cartoony and nonsensical. But I think that's where the idea came from.
> 
> The bathroom setting and bullying plot point are things that I believe I ripped wholesale from Kimi Ni Todoke. The shonen-esque bully-throwing scene was just a thing I put in, both as a cathartic thing against awful, malicious people who just want to hurt, break down and destroy the lives and reputations of other people, and as a way to throw in Elliot's bully-fighting past.
> 
> And that's about it. Thank you so much for reading this story, and for bearing through these notes.


End file.
